Posted
by
Zonk
on Sunday January 07, 2007 @04:21AM
from the a-sad-day-for-noodles dept.

Chained Fei writes "Ando Momofuku, Father of the Instant Ramen, passed away on January 5th at the age of 96. He concocted the idea for Instant Ramen after WWII, hoping to reduce the amount of poor nourishment for soldiers in the field. If not for this great man, many a poor college student and programmer would have starved over the years. From the article: 'In 1971, Nissin introduced the Cup Noodle featuring instant ramen in a waterproof plastic foam container. Dubbed the "Ramen King," Ando is credited with expanding Nissin into the No. 1 company in the industry and was well-known for his dedication to his work ... In 1999, Ando opened the Momofuku Ando Instant Ramen Museum in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, after installing his second son, Koki, as president of the company.'"

Ando was inspired to develop the instant noodle after coming upon a long line of people on a cold night shortly after World War II waiting to buy freshly made ramen at a black market food stall, according to Nissin.The experience convinced him that "Peace will come to the world when the people have enough to eat," it said.

Yeah, sure, he started this. Of course when it first came out it was ungodly expensive [straightdope.com], so right there it wasn't quite what it is now.

But then again, AFAIC, at this point ramen is still the perfect geek food.

1.) It's hugely high tech. That little fifty cent packet depends on freeze-drying, foil packaging (thank you NASA), fifth or later gen styrofoam if it's in a cup (only recent gens are low in leached plasticizers), chances are you're cooking it in a microwave oven, and on and on. An awful lot of geek skull sweat went into every little pack of noodly goodness.

2.) It's truly imternational. Go for it, tell me again about the evil American cultural hegemony. Ramen is a Chinese food [wikipedia.org] reworked by a Japanese inventor, and increasingly done in south Asian flavors, all sold through American-style distibution.

3.) It's a triumph of free-market capitalism. A better product that succeeded because it is better and getting constantly revised due to low barriers to entry and fierce competition.

4.) It's hackable. Don't want the palm oil? Drain off the water before you eat it and rinse in fresh hot water. Want to add stuff? Folks have been customizing their ramen for thousands of years. Add peanut butter and veggies and it's damn healthy.

5.) It's still cheap. State of the art product for sale so cheap you can buy a case of it for the cost of one meal at, say, Dennys, let alone real food.

There are air dried versions of ramen, and those have negligible amounts of oil.

These often don't come with any flavouring as well, so you may have to do a bit of cooking if you don't have extra flavour packets around.

You could fry in olive oil and black pepper + a bit of chopped parsley, then add a fried egg. Yes you're adding oil back again, but good olive oil is worth it:). With the egg the entire meal gives you a fair balance of carbo, protein and fat.

Fried egg? Nah, just scramble one up in a cup and then dump it in your boiling ramen at the end. Whisk it around with a fork for about 5 seconds and you're done. Of course, this only works with non-instant ramen.

I knew somebody in school who while studying abroad in Germany, had a diet that consisted of saltine crackers, tomato paste, and tuna. According to him he kept himself fed for $2/day. Granted, he could have been eating better if he weren't spending $50/week on beer, but he figured that he needed to more fully study the culture while he was there and thus aligned his dietary priorities accordingly.

after WWII, hoping to reduce the amount of poor nourishment for soldiers in the field.

Funny, no mention of that "peace dividend from a war product" in the actual story, which instead cites compassion for starving Japanese on soup lines after atomic war devastated their country. But if instant ramen was indeed either inspired or funded justified by feeding soldiers better, then it's proof that outlawing war makes a nation's economy more competitive where it counts: feeding people, and making money. And there

And most of the damage to their cities was from non-nuclear sources, by far. People tend to forget about the fire-raids that devastated a lot more of Japan's cityscape than two comparatively tiny nukes.

Silly me, I forgot that I was posting to/., land of niggling disagreement.

Now, first of all, I mostly don't buy ramen at all these days. My noodle fix of choice is some Wei Wei rice noodles with amchur (mango powder), a bit of tienjin dried cabbage, pickled ginger, an egg and or shredded meat, fresh scallions (I grow my own), maybe greens or sprouts, maybe peanut butter, a bit of soy sauce, smidgens of other seasonings, and some fresh lime juice. Comes out to about a buck a meal.

6 for $0.79?!?! Wowww!In the UK, the only place from which I can buy Ramen charges between 80 pence and £1.80 a pot!!!! (to be fair it is the genuine article imported from Japan).

Sadly, over here we have a product called "Pot Noodle" which has somehow managed to occupy the place where Ramen should be. After years of eating that muck on occassion, it was a truly miraculous thing to see how Japanese vegitables somehow rehydrated into something that looked and tasted like a vegitable! I seriously cant un

...no need for the dried-and-fried crap.For those who want to experiment with "real" ramen, look for "Yakisoba Noodles" in the deli case if you can't find the fresh ramen kits that some Japanese companies make. As far as broth goes, if you want it easy, get a can of Swanson's Chicken Broth and use that. If you want to get a more authentic effect, make some bone-in pork roast or roast a chicken, then make broth with the bones. You cook the noodles at the last minute, in plain boiling water for about 30 secon

Just for the sake of consistency...if "gaijin" is acceptable, is "jap" acceptable? Both can be condescending depending on who you ask (and where you ask I suppose). Otherwise, the preferred term is "gaikokujin."

On a less serious note, great info. I'm a local around there and will have to hit those places up.

If you're really a noodle nerd, you need to go to the museum in Ikeda mentioned in TFA. There's an exhibition, and you also get to make your own packet of instant chicken ramen there.:)

For the interested living in Osaka: take Hankyu Takarazuka line to Ikeda, and follow the map [nissin-noodles.com]. No reservation needed for the ramen kitchen. On the way back to the station, there's a nice ramen place on the left in a small alley on the same street, called Momofuku-tei.

"Yakisoba Noodles" are not Soba noodles. They are actually Chinese noodles. The Japanese dish Yakisoba is sort of their answer to Chow Mein. Soba would not survive being stir-fried after boiling. Believe me, I know my Japanese food."Yakisoba (, Yakisoba?), literally "fried noodles", is a dish often sold at festivals in Japan. It originates from Chinese chow mein, but has been integrated into Japanese cuisine like ramen. Even though soba is part of the word, yakisoba noodles are not made from buckwheat, but

In the same parking lot is "House of Tokushima", which makes the delicious "Niku-Iri" ramen.

Down the street, before the intersection of Saratoga and Stevens Creek, there is Ramen Halu, which serves (among other things) a delicious regional ramen called (naturally!) Halu Ramen, which contains thicker noodles and a hearty pork broth. (Not everyone likes it, but I think it's delicious, and a great place to go when you're really hungry...)

He concocted the idea for Instant Ramen after WWII, hoping to reduce the amount of poor nourishment for soldiers in the field.

I'll tell you that soldiers eat this stuff in the field all of the time. I'm in a unit that fields the http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/new s/2002/05/mil-020529-usa01.htm [globalsecurity.org] Stryker which has a water heater inside of it. I'd say it gets used for cooking ramen almost as much as it does for heating MREs (Meal Ready to Eat).
Soldiers love this as much as any college student. I can't imagine somebody who doesn't love Ramen though...

1. "Ramen" is a traditional Japanese dish consisting of noodles and broth, sometimes garnished with meat, vegetables, tofu, etc. What you are referring to is "instant ramen", which has only a tenuous connection with the real stuff.

2. You don't have to imagine it - there's plenty of people who can't stomach the stuff, myself included. Although I might feel differently if I was living in an armored personnel carrier.

It did. The FSM sent it's beloved son, Ando Momofuku, to the world to teach the world about FSM through Ramen. The FSM exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of two beings - the FSM and Ando Momofuku. You might ask yourself, "Why?!" -- the answer my friend, is to just accept it, the FSM works in mysterious ways.

Not really. I was fortunate that I learned to cook before I went to university, but a lot of my contemporaries live on pasta and a stir-in sauce. Instant Ramen haven't taken off here in the UK (we have pot noodles, but the less said about them the better), so I guess that's the cultural equivalent. In my first year as an undergrad, I lived with a Nepalese guy who had been brought up in a culture where women did the cooking and men weren't allowed in the kitchen; he managed to destroy a saucepan cooking r

In the UK do the student domiciles typically include a fairly complete kitchen (-ette)? That might explain the cultural difference. Many of the dorms in US colleges and universities have no kitchen facilities whatsoever, or at the most a wholly inadequate shared "kitchen" of two stoves on the first floor of a building designed to house several hundred students.They often have a small microwave & child size refrigerator, which is great for frozen dinners and ramen, but is insufficient for anything more

It varies. At my university, if you were in university accommodation (which most people were for the first year, after which they went elsewhere, some returning for their final year), you were offered a choice between self-catering or catered accommodation. The self-catered part was a village of houses split into flats for 4-7 people who all shared a kitchen. It had a reasonable amount of space and an oven / grill and hobs. No microwave (or toaster), but a lot of people got their own. The catered accom

Some of us instead learned to cook ramen, in weird and wonderful ways:)My two favourites:

Put 2 cups COLD water into quart glass bowl (has to start off cold or the eggs will fall apart). Add 2 or 3 eggs. Punch a small hole in each yolk (so it won't explode). Smash up a packet of ramen, dump it into the water. Microwave for 3 to 4 minutes, until eggs are set. Drain excess liquid. Add random quantity of grated cheese and a SMALL amount of the flavour packet. Stir, let cheese melt, enjoy. (Note: eggs are optio

A delicious blend of flavors will keep this super salad on the top of your list!

Cook noodles according to package directions, but do not add flavor packets. Drain and cool. Cut noodles up slightly. Combine with other salad ingredients in a large bowl. In a small bowl, mix flavor packets, garlic and lemon juice and let stand at least 15 minutes. Add oil and mayonnaise and whisk until smooth. Pour dressing over salad and toss until thoroughly mixed. Garnish with red pepper rings and small grape clusters if desired. Quick and delicious!

No, really, he did sponsor the publication of a book called (using Romaji) Insutanto Ra-men No Himitsu, or the Secrets of Instant Ramen. I read it back in 1998. It was pretty clear that the company had helped sponsor it, though it was published as part of a very popular series of children's books. The 'secrets' series are educational manga (comic books) for kids, and include such classics as the Secrets of Bread (the food) and the Secrets of Fish (the animals) and the Secrets of Earthquakes. The Secrets of

Havent eaten any since college days ( a good 15+ years now ) but for some odd reason was in the mood about 11 pm on the 5th and went out to get some from the local grocery. ( and of course prepared the same way as i did back then.. with burger, their seasoning and just enough pasta sauce to make it wet )

There's a cool little ramen restaurant in NYC, down in the village (10th street and 1st Ave, if memory serves) named "Momofuku's." It's a pretty good spot. I ate there a few times last year. The wait time is ridiculously long and it's always crowded, but it's worth it. They have some damn good ramen.

Like Harland Sanders' story, Ando's is inspiring for those of us who are "past their prime" in this youth-oriented culture. I'm looking around for some kind of post-computer geek career that doesn't involve management (especially not managing software development), but to pay the bills I have to keep doing what I've grown to hate. It doesn't help to be thought of as too old (read: too expensive) to have "kept up" with the "l33t" technology. Ando and others prove that age doesn't have to affect peoples' c

she has the potential to do so and get out of the programming field altogether.So, buck up fellow creaking-jointed, progressive-bifocal-wearing, relaxed-fit-docker's-wearing folks, it's never too late to start again!

I dunno, I'm in the same age bracket as you, and even after 25 years in the field, I absolutely love programming -- the amount of fascinating stuff there is to do with the same core skillset is just amazing, given how computers play an increasingly large part in a vast number of fields. I'm an

I dunno, I'm in the same age bracket as you, and even after 25 years in the field, I absolutely love programming -- the amount of fascinating stuff there is to do with the same core skillset is just amazing, given how computers play an increasingly large part in a vast number of fields. I'm an old school hacker I guess: I view the field

Obviously, he did not eat too much of his own inventions.:-)But seriously, instant noodles nowadays are pretty bad (nutritionally - lots of "50% saturated fat, etc." types out there). Even after draining it through hot water and using your own soup and flavoring, you're still dealing with fried noodles for the most part.

My favorite is a vegetarian ramen from Taiwan. I haven't had a better one. Whatever chemicals they put in there to make the noodles taste good and have a good texture, they've got it all co

Even better:) Not only that, but it's one of the few foods that has gone down in price over the past 3 decades, but hasn't gone downhill in quality. Ramen now tastes much as it did when I was in college.

When I was in high school, a Japanese exchange student told me that many Japanese teens heat up Nissin Cup Noodles, let it sit in cold water for a couple minutes, then drill a hole at the bottom of the cup and use it as a poor man's FleshLight (not worksafe) [fleshlight.com]. Quoth him, "I feels like real thing, man."

Cup 'o Noodles are over a dollar if I remember correctly. Any starving student worth his graphing calculator would buy 5-7 times the amount of noodles in plastic packaging. And remember -- every dollar saved on ramen is a dollar toward the keg fund.

College students wouldn't starve - they would just eat more Kraft Dinner (Macaroni and Cheese) like I did in collge. Of course, usually I didn't spring for the name brand and went with the 19 cents a box generic.

Sodium is not nearly as bad as many people have been lead to believe. Doctors will frequently tell their hypertension patients to cut as much sodium from their diets as possible, but this is because a portion of the population is hypersensitive to sodium [nih.gov], and there is no way to tell whether or not cutting sodium can help their blood pressure until a low sodium diet is tried. If the patient responds well to the low sodium intake, then other more drastic measures like medication can be avoided.

Keep in mind that until the advent of modern preservatives (the most commonly used one is still sodium) and refrigeration/freezing, the primary method of preserving a variety of foods involved salt curing, and many people of long ago had daily intakes of sodium that would be considered astronomical by today's standards, yet managed to find many interesting ways to die that didn't involve stroke or heart attack.

Yes and no. Let's keep in mind that most people unless a few generations back dies too young for us to know how bad their heart disease would have been. They also, on average, exercised far more. Remember, going to take a crap used to mean walking out to the yard and back. Getting your room warm meant building a fire. Traveling quickly meant riding a horse. Stuff we do effortlessly took more exertion for them than many modern folks experience in a routine at the gym.

And mortality rates of the mothers. It wasn't at all uncommon for a man to go through two or three wives. Childbirth was extremely risky. That's why infant mortality and deaths due to child birth are the still the two primary indicators of healty care quality.

On the more generic picture, while fewer people get eaten by bears these days, more of them fall asleep at the wheel. Familiarty breeds contempt, but contempt does not imply that the activity is actually safe. With a bit of practice you can fall asleep at the reins and you will end up . ..home.

And the biggest saver of lives in modern times isn't avoidence of certain risk factors. If you crunch the numbers from the raw data you find that the theoretical maximum possible effect of this is really, quite, quite small. So small as to be at the borderline of precision of measurment.

What keeps larger numbers of us who manage to make it to 21 alive to see 75 is really a very small number of things:

A horse is of rather low intelligence, but it is at least real intelligence. It knows its own way home and has a certain desire to get there (that's where the oats are) so long as there isn't where it already is (see cats and doors/other side of). It can do this without plunging into a tree and bursting into flames or nothin'.Your job is to not fall off. At mosey pace this actually isn't all that hard and the horse may never even realize you've gone to sleep.

And it wasn't first on the list by accident. Familiarity breeds contempt, but the stuff is the wonder drug. We should have shrines to the "lowly" White Willow/Meadowsweet, but, well, familiarity breeds contempt.

The GP's supporting argument might not have been entirely sound, but I'd still like to see the research that proves (or strongly suggests) that sodium causes hypertension where none previously existed. I know it's only anecdotal, but I eat *way* more salt than most people I know (they always complain that my food is too salty) but my blood pressure is actually well below normal.

many people of long ago had daily intakes of sodium that would be considered astronomical by today's standards, yet managed to find many interesting ways to die that didn't involve stroke or heart attack.

Being tortured to death by Genghis Khan might qualify as interesting, but I'll take an old-fashioned heart attack any day. The plague, too, would be far from boring. But I think part of the reason people didn't die back then from conditions endemic to old age is that disease and other factors killed t

First, you would have gotten a call from one of his 'people'. Then after many forms and interviews with more lower mid-level 'managers', and lots and lots of waiting in tiny little rooms you might catch a glimpse of Khan but after they were finished, he wouldn't even ever know your name. And God help you if you get trapped in an elevator with him afterwards...

not only that, cup ramen has 920mg of sodium. 200mg is considered too much, but 920mg is more then 50% of your daily maximum intake. If you have even two of those a day, you are giving yourself way too much sodium.... waaaaay too much sodium...
but heck, it tastes good!
its just like those Stouffer's microwaveable dinners.They have some ridiculous amount of sodium. My aunt started having one of those to eat every day and died within two years. That stuff kills, man. Still tastes good though:)

This may defeat of purpose of cheap Raman noodles, but Wyler may still sell Instant Bouillion and Seasoning Shakers. The old jar I have in my cupboard indicates NO MSG added. Of course, it does contain partially hydrogenated soybean and cottonseed oil, so using it instead of the included packets doesn't make you take a detour on Heart Attack Highway...

I have exactly that problem, to the extent of needing to avoid foods that contain natural MSG (soy, algae) or produce small amounts of MSG as a processing byproduct (high-fructose corn syrup, autolyzed/hydrolyzed yeast extract, any hydrogenated oil, etc).

It's funny, in light of the anti-organics rant nearby, but the only ramen I have ever found that I can eat was at Whole Foods. They sell a brand of organic instant ramen (yes, really) that has no explicit MSG in any of it, and even has a few flavors with no soy as well. (The garlic & pepper flavor is very good, as is the ginger lemongrass.)

I can't recall the brand name, as I'm out right now, but will get more soon and try to follow up with it here.